Am I doing any harm if.....

Thatman

Playin' for the fun of it.
I've been off work with health issues recently but the up side is I've been playing with my guitars a bit more. In addition to following tab and lessons I've been getting a little bit more adventurous and playing with the knobs and levers on my guitar, mainly my Strat. Now don't laugh but when time is sparse you tend to just do routine playing.

But that is not the question, the point I'd like your feed back on is this:

I have a Fender Mustang III (solid state) and when I have my guitar plugged in and working all is fine, however, when I wish to change my guitar I switch the amp off and unplug the guitar, pick up the next guitar plug in the cable to the guitar and switch on the amp. Now the question is what are the issues with the following:

1. To change guitar leave amp switched on and turn guitar volume to off then unplug, pick up next guitar, plug in then turn up guitar volume.

2. Switch off amp and do the swap over.

I'd be intrigued to know that if I followed point 1 would I damage my amp/guitar. :eek:
 

mountain man

Still got the Blues!
I certainly hope not!! I do it all the time!! Usually when I'm jamming to the Blues station and a tune comes on that draws me to a different guitar........ I just switch the guitars. I leave everything on..... I don't turn down the guitar or amp.
 

Thatman

Playin' for the fun of it.
One of the benefits of leaving the amp on during a change over would be to keep the preset that you're using.
 

giayank

Just another day in paradise
I turn the volume down on my amp just to avoid any crackle or pop from my speaker. I don't think amp circuitry is an issue but high volume surges aren't good for speakers. There are cables that are made with an automatic shut off built in . They have a pin that gets pushed in as you plug them into instrument or amp . Work well and come in reasonable prices.
 

Norfolk Bill

norfolk uk, just knoodling along
:) but unless you have money coming out of your ears to be able to afford a collection of different flavoured tube amps, its worth putting up with, i dont have a mustang but do have a collection of "blue" series vox valvtronixs that get me 90% in the ball park of the tube amps modeled.
Good enough to gig with, nobody in the audience would know, so why would i spend 20,000 on the collection housed in there?
Oh and ive had tube amps
 

PapaRaptor

Father Vyvian O'Blivion
Staff member
At BGU Live, the amps aren't turned off or down between guitarists. What Griff recommended to us to unplug the guitar cable from the amp. Then unplug your guitar and plug in the new one. Finally, plug the cable back in the amp. You don't have to worry about loud pops (or shouldn't) and if you're on a modeling amp, you won't lose your preset. Over time, the loud pop you usually get when changing guitars can have a damaging effect on the speakers.
 

Momantai

Red nose, red guitar
And again, I'm with Paparaptor. To be safe, just turn down volume, swap guitars and turn volume back up. Popping is (eventually) bad for your speakers (and ears).
No need to switch off the amp.
 

Thatman

Playin' for the fun of it.
Thanks for the useful feedback chaps its good to know that I'm ok with the quick change and not having to turn of the amp, it was getting a bit frustrating having to redial the preset.
I had a look to see if there were any sane jack cables available in the UK but they are not easy to find but I like that idea. (y)
 

02KnowBetter

I need a shot of Rhythm and Blues...
I use a cable made by (I believe) PlanetWaves that has a button on one of the plugs that kills the signal. If I'm smart and make sure that end is the one plugged into the guitar, I merely push the button, pull the plug and swap guitars. No loud popping. Another option is using a tuner pedal in the signal path. Most of these pedals will mute the output when the tuner is engaged. Step on the tuner pedal before you swap guitars to eliminate offensive pops.
 

david moon

Attempting the Blues
At BGU Live, the amps aren't turned off or down between guitarists. What Griff recommended to us to unplug the guitar cable from the amp. Then unplug your guitar and plug in the new one. Finally, plug the cable back in the amp. You don't have to worry about loud pops (or shouldn't) and if you're on a modeling amp, you won't lose your preset. Over time, the loud pop you usually get when changing guitars can have a damaging effect on the speakers.
You don't even need to fully unplug from the amp. Just pull it halfway out so it's not making contact with the tip.
 

Rancid Rumpboogie

Blues Mangler
About losing your presets when turning the amp off. I don't. The Mustang always comes on with the preset in memory location 00 as the current preset. So I simply store my most often-used (98% of the time) preset there. My other most-used presets (three of them) are stored in locations 01, 02 and 03. So they are always right at the top of the heap, one click away from each other, no scrolling through the menu to find them.

My favorite preset is a '65 Twin. So essentially my Mustang is a '65 Twin. Turn it on and start playing. There aren't even any knobs to get bumped or changed like there are on a tube amp.

At home, my volume is always set so low that the slight buzz/pop of changing a guitar is harmless. If I were at a gig I would use Griff's method.
 
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Thatman

Playin' for the fun of it.
About losing your presets when turning the amp off. I don't. The Mustang always comes on with the preset in memory location 00 as the current preset. So I simply store my most often-used (98% of the time) preset there. My other most-used presets (three of them) are stored in locations 01, 02 and 03. So they are always right at the top of the heap, one click away from each other, no scrolling through the menu to find them.

My favorite preset is a '65 Twin. So essentially my Mustang is a '65 Twin. Turn it on and start playing. There aren't even any knobs to get bumped or changed like there are on a tube amp.

At home, my volume is always set so low that the slight buzz/pop of changing a guitar is harmless. If I were at a gig I would use Griff's method.

I like that idea of moving your favourite presets to the start numbers, how is something like that done, hope it's not complicated and do you lose any presets?
 

Norfolk Bill

norfolk uk, just knoodling along
is there not a manual mode on these amps?, on mine I can bypass any patches and just use as a WYSIWYG, just by pressing a button, then every time you turn it on you can use it like a normal amp, until you select the preset section again,,,,,,clear as mud
 

MikeS

Student Of The Blues
Staff member
I'd leave everything on, but
- when disconnecting, unplug from the amp first,
- when reconnecting , plug into the amp last.
 

HotLks

Blues - it's in me and it's got to come out.
Moving the presets on the Mustang involves doing a backup of the presets, rearranging them on a restore. It takes a while to get the hang of it. I wouldn't call it simple. You can do a quick and dirty, Save As... from the amp and put in the preset number of the place you want to move your chosen setting to but then you lose (overwrite) the preset that is originally there. I still fight with my presets every time I want to change the order or rename them. I use the backup/restore method. I don't enjoy the exercise. It's a bit time consuming. It's complicated enough that I can't describe it to you now. I have to actually go to do it and make a note of how it's done while I do it. You can find information about it by searching rearrange Mustang presets. That's how I learned to do it. There's supposed to be a tool someone created to do it but it's not reliable, so I never used it. An operation like this is on the downside of using a Mustang. It requires some patience and learning, two things I don't always want to take the time for.

I've been thinking about moving some of my presets recently. If no one has answered this question when I do mine, I'll make notes and post how I do it here. I've been procrastinating because of the time it MAY take.

See you down the road! :thumbup:
 
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